Monday, September 19, 2011

firing #11 pots and the Driftless Art Festival

The 11th firing is unloaded, cleaned up and sold... well, not all sold, but we were quite pleased with our first year at the 'Driftless Art Festival'. First the pots:

I was quite pleased wit the covered bowls this firing, this little guy came out of the third chamber.

We have been experimenting with gradually lowering our top temperature in the second and third chamber. A little bit each firing... This is for many reasons: We like our glazes fairly thick and when they get too hot they run, and we end up doing a lot of grinding, both of pots and of the kiln shelves. Also while we love shiny glazes, we enjoy contrast just as much, and really enjoy the contrast of some matte as well as some glassy glaze all on the same pot. This firing was all about finding out our limits though as we finally found out what was too cool for our glazes. For the record, cone 9 need to be down for our glazes to really look their best. That's part of what we love about pottery though, the continued exploration of firing, glaze, slips, clays they all interact the learning never stops....We occasionally have trouble with our ash glaze when it gets too much fly ash from our kiln. Which is why I was regretting putting this bowl in the first chamber immediately after closing up the first chamber. It came out much better than expected though, the very light dusting of fly ash gives it the yellow highlights.I had mentioned in a previous post about our changing of the grate system. The above jar came from the front of the kiln, and I really like the contrast of the grey charring from the ember pile and the green from the melting wood ash.A large jar.

We unloaded the kiln Tuesday and spent the rest of the week cleaning, pricing, and packing up pots for the Driftless Art Festival.

Our "new to us" truck filled with pots, shelves and everything needed for a successful show.

A big thanks to everybody who stopped by and saw us this weekend. Also to the organizers of the show. It really was one of the best run shows we've ever been to, thanks. Next up for us, the Fall Art Tour!